The term “food allergy” is synonomous with food hypersensitivity. “Food intolerance”
is a term applied to any abnormal response to an ingested food. Food allergy encompasses
several clinicopathologic entities. These include classic, immediate reactions to
foods that are IgE mediated and involve basophils, mast cells, and delayed reactions
that involve a number of immunologic effector systems (Table 1).
There are limited data available relative to the prevalence of food allergies in the
general population. The prevalence of cow's milk allergy was found to be 2.2% in a
study of Danish infants.
10
One Dutch study based on questionnaires, clinical follow-up, and double-blind, placebo-controlled
food challenge estimated the prevalence of food allergy and intolerance in adults
together to be 2.4%.
11
Reactions to additives have been estimated at 0.01% to 0.23%, as assessed by questionnaire
and compared with the number that could be confirmed by means of double-blind challenge.
29
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Article info
Footnotes
Address reprint request to Dean D. Metcalfe, MD, NIH/NIAID/LAD, Building 10, Room 11C205, 10 Center Drive MSC 1881, Bethesda, MD 20892–1881, e-mail: deanmetcalfe@nih.gov
Identification
Copyright
© 1998 W. B. Saunders Company. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
